GR1 - Task analysis
User analysis
We identify 3 main user classes for MyWeb and summarize their characteristics and needs using personas.
Persona 1.
Devicer is a 30 year old office worker who used to only have a computer in the office but he just bought an iMAC for his house and an iPhone. He has about 10 web pages that he often visits but doesn’t remember their URLs. On his old computer he probably bookmarked all of those web pages, or he can just type a few letters in the URL box and the browser history will get him the appropriate URL. However, with his new devices, he either has to do a Google search to find the websites he uses or try e-mailing himself the appropriate URLs from his old computer. Both ways are inconvenient and inefficient. Furthermore, he is now considering expanding his list of bookmarks, but realizes that it would be very tedious to sync across all of his devices. He wishes that there was one place on the Internet, such as myweb.mit.edu, where he could go and find all of his favorite web pages nicely organized and presented to him.
Persona 2.
Bookmarker is a college student who regularly uses many different sites including all her class related web pages, her social network related web pages, and her work related web pages, etc. Thus, she has more than 50 bookmarks on her browser. Since the bookmarks on the browser don’t provide much information about what website that bookmark corresponds to, she often confuses the bookmarks and ends up in a website that she did not intend to go to. Also, since she has that many bookmarks, not all of them can fit on the browser window, so it takes her a lot of time to go to her “other bookmarks” folder and find the bookmark she is looking for. She wishes that there was a web application that would allow her to efficiently add, delete, find, and access her bookmarks.
Persona 3.
Newb is 40 year old farmer who has been using the Internet for the past 6 months. He noticed that the count of websites that he uses on a regular basis has been increasing rapidly. Thus he is looking for a way to organize his websites in order to remember them all and if necessary search through them. He starts using the regular bookmark tool but he tends to forget which bookmark corresponds to which website thus he needs a visual representation(maybe a thumbnail) of the bookmark that would let him see some of the content of the website before accessing it. Also, since the bookmark tool on the browsers shows only a small button for each website, it is hard for him to aim for those buttons (new computer users are not proficient with the mouse).
Task analysis
Create Account on MyWeb:
- frequency of task: on average only once, but could vary up to 5 in extreme cases
- preconditions: knowing the url for the web app, having an email account
- sign up:** provide a unique identifier (email) and password
- confirm the email address
Change my password:
- frequency of task: on average once a month, but could vary between a day and 5 years
- precondition: logged in
- change password:
- provide the old password
- enter a new one and confirm it
Get Access to MyWeb:
- frequency of task: daily access is the average
- precondition: know the url for the web app, remember email and/or password
- log in:
- provide email and password
- provide only email, go to email, and click the link for reset password
Interact with MyWeb:
- frequency of task: daily access is the average
- precondition: logged in
- view my favorite websites from any Internet access point:
- decide on the website that I want to visit
- search for the website
- navigate to the website
- add a new website to MyWeb
- provide the website url (through a text box or a plug-in)
- edit a website in MyWeb:
- change the title
- customize the view
- change sharing settings
- delete
- organize my websites** make a category** make a certain website belong to a category (like the labels in Gmail)
- view the current content of my favorite websites (via visual representation)
- see common/most popular websites
